What is your darkness? An empirical study of interrogative practices in sermonic discourse

Journal article, 2015

This paper is an interdisciplinary (linguistic-homiletic) data-driven analysis of interrogative practices in contemporary preaching, where questions are treated as devices evoking sermon listener engagement. The analysis focuses on the distribution of questions in preaching, the types of questions used, and the location of questions in sermons, all of which are aspects of interrogatives with direct implications for the interpersonal nature of preaching. The investigation concludes by considering preachers' rationale for using questions, highlighting the multifunctional potential of sermon questions. The findings and the discussions in here will contribute to a more nuanced continued discussion within the homiletics community concerning the "place" of questions in preaching.